Jeff LaHurd: Ken Thompson's legacy

Friday

Feb 1, 2013 at 12:01 AM

By JEFF LAHURD, Guest Columnist

If you came to Sarasota in the early 1920s and returned in 1950, you would have found that very little change had taken place. The real estate crash at the end of 1926, the Great Depression and World War II saw to that.

For a generation, growth had virtually stopped; we were still the Circus City, bustling with snowbirds in the winter months and dead slow during the summer time, aka mosquito season; we traveled to the keys across outmoded bridges to visit beaches which were void of high-rise buildings. St. Armands Circle had only a handful of businesses; City Hall was located in the antiquated Hover Arcade; the first Ringling Bridge was deteriorating; Bird Key was a small island with only the Worcester Mansion, Sarasota Bay lapped up to Gulfstream Avenue; all the roads and highways were two-lane and in need of repair; and worse, sewage emptied into the bay.

In effect we were still the Sarasota that John and Charles Ringling, Owen Burns, John Hamilton Gillespie and Bertha Palmer had left us -- yesterday's Sarasota.

The march to today's Sarasota began on Feb. 1, 1950, when Ken Thompson was sworn into office as city manager by Mayor John Fite Robertson. Thompson's 38-year tenure at the helm of city government saw the transformation of a sleepy town into the vibrant city we enjoy today, and he kept a tight grip on the city coffers.

An engineer by training, he was exactly what the city needed, a man with the wherewithal to oversee the infrastructure improvements so desperately needed to modernize. The commission that hired him and succeeding commissions got that and more. Thompson was considered by his peers to be brilliant and he remained steadfast in his vision of what Sarasota should become, a cultural Mecca.

Even a partial list of what transpired on his watch is impressive: Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, a new city hall, rerouting U.S. 41, rezoning downtown, the second Ringling Causeway, Island Park and Marina Jack, various beautification projects, road improvements throughout the city, Lido Beach restoration, the Farmers Market, the reclaimed waste-water system, the water treatment plant, the condominiums along Gulfstream Avenue, Bayfront Drive, the purchase and preservation of North Lido Beach; the list goes on. Perhaps Waldo Proffitt, former editor of the Herald-Tribune, summed it up best when he called Thompson the architect of Sarasota.

On Jan. 22, Mayor Suzanne Atwell proclaimed Feb. 1 to be Ken Thompson Day. To honor Thompson, the Friends of the Sarasota County History center are hosting a party at the History Center Museum, 701 N. Tamiami Trail from 6 to 8 p.m. today. The public is invited.

Jeff LaHurd is the author of multiple books on Sarasota's history. The latest is "The Rise of Sarasota: Ken Thompson and the Rebirth of Paradise."